A spiritual but not religious business owner of a consulting company geared toward social media for the spiritual entrepreneur - giving a go at cathartic writing & videos with the hopes of improving my life - and who knows? perhaps a few others while I'm at it.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Importance of Strategy & Implementation in Social Media

Strategy is very important with regard to social media marketing. I know that the first urge, when we hear about so many people/companies out there being successful in social media, is to go out and jump online and start mimicking those successful companies. Of course to replicate success is always a good idea, but that cannot be your only strategy. As overwhelming &/or time consuming as it may seem, it is very important to have a clear marketing plan for your business and for social media to be included in it. Even better if you have a social media specific marketing plan that complements your already existing marketing plan, yet works separately from it as needed.

The majority of social media experts, including myself, will tell you that a social media marketing plan and a strategy for executing that play are the two most important details for anyone desiring to be successful online. I have multiple clients past and present whom I've consulted for in the area of social media and I can tell you that those who have a plan & are working through a set strategy with which to execute their plan are the most successful and/or are moving forward in the fastest most successful manner. The clients who have no plan at all, who have a plan but allow themselves to be distracted by every attractive idea, who have no strategy with which to execute their plan or who are not sticking to that strategy are the least successful and the most stressed. It makes more sense not only for your business, but also for your peace of mind, that you go forward only with a plan and a strategy.

5 THINGS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY & IMPLEMENTATION:

BLOGGING - plan how frequently you will post to your blog(s), what your topics are during particular marketing phases (already in your marketing plan), then stick to that schedule.

TWEETING - plan what you are going to tweet about & when you are going to tweet it, then stick with that schedule either via directly tweeting or auto-tweeting your tweets as you move forward during particular marketing phases.

WRITING - (a bit different than blogging) - plan whether you will be posting articles, blogs, press releases, tweets, Facebook posts, Linkedin posts, articles to your email list or all of the above, plan where exactly all those posts will go, plan the frequency of the posts and then sit down to plan your personal writing schedule. Make sure you include proper time with which to write so that you can be sure to post to all these sources in a timely manner & so that you have plenty of content on hand for anything that may come up.

ARTICLES - plan how frequently you will post articles, what your topics are during particular marketing phases, where you will post them, then stick to that schedule.

GROUPS - plan which groups you will participate on via LinkedIn &/or Facebook, what topics you will be focusing on during particular marketing phases, join or create those groups as necessary, then stick with that schedule.

These are just a few of the many things you should consider when creating your social media marketing plan. If you don't have a marketing plan for your business or a social media marketing strategy to complement that plan, I'd suggest you get started creating both. There are plenty of great marketing companies out there that can assist you in creating a marketing plan and help you along the way. Of course, I can assist you in creating your social media marketing strategy &/or training regarding how to perform some of the tasks that relate to your strategy. If you need services be sure to email me via the contact me link in my profile page.